Alaya
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An abbreviation of Alaya-vijanana.
Alaya is a sort of eternal substance or matter, creative and containing all forms;
when considered as a whole, it is non-existent, or contains nothing; when considered phenomenal, it fills the universe.
It seems to be of the nature of materialism.
It is the store or totality of consciousness both absolute and relative.
It is described as the fundamental mind-consciousness of conscious beings, which lays hold of all the experience of the individual life, and which stores and holds the germs of all affairs.
It is the last of Eighth Consciousness from which the Wisdom of Great Round Mirror is derived.
- 1. abode; roosting place;
- 2. desire; attachment;
- 3. pretence.
Source
Alaya (Skt. ālaya; Tib. ཀུན་གཞི་, kun shyi; Wyl. kun gzhi) — the universal ground or basis. Longchenpa describes alaya in this way:
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“It is unenlightenment and a neutral state, which belongs to the category of mind and mental events, and it has become the foundation of all karmas and ‘traces’ of samsara and nirvana.”[1] |
༈ [[ངོ་བོ་ནི་སེམས་སེམས་བྱུང་གིས་ཉེ་བར་བསྡུས་པས་འཁོར་འདས་ཀྱི་ལས་དང་བག་ཆགས་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱི་རྟེན་དུ་གྱུར་པ་སྟེ། མ་རིག་པའི་ལུང་མ་བསྟན་ཏེ]]། |
In the Lamdré teachings however, it refers to the indivisible union of awareness and emptiness. This is also how the term is used when it appears in the Seven Points of Mind Training.
1) collecting place, begging bowl; 2) continuum of mind, one's nature; 3) alaya [one of the 8 consciousnesses all-ground, basis/ ground/ fundamental structuring of all [experience], the basic store of all consciousness) either samsaric or sometimes when purified is equal to dharmadhatu. Sometimes aspects of alaya and alaya-vijnana are distinguished] [IW]
alaya - all-ground. Literally, the 'foundation of all things.' The basis of mind and both pure and impure phenomena. This word has different meanings in different contexts and should be understood accordingly. Sometimes it is synonymous with buddha nature or dharmakaya, the recognition of which is the basis for all pure phenomena; other times, as in the case of the 'ignorant all-ground,' it refers to a neutral state of dualistic mind which is not yet embraced by innate wakefulness and thus is the basis for samsaric experience [RY]
basis/ ground of all (ordinary) experience [RB]
alaya 1) all-ground, basis of all, ground-of-all; gathering place, storehouse, ground of all (ordinary/ samsaric) experience; basis of everything, basic nature. 2) abbr. of kun gzhi'i rnam par shes pa, kun gzhi rnam par shes pa [RY]
all-ground [RY]
alaya, (universal, primal, common) ground, substratum-awareness, foundation of everything, stratum of all and everything, accounts for unity of being all ground, common comprehensive foundation of both samsara and nirvana, fundamental structuring of all experience spirit, primeval in a special sense, innermost essence, inherent nature all-ground spirit, basis, mind, base of all, base, (sometimes synonymous with rang byung ye shes, byang chub sems, bon nyid), primordial base, universal ground of emptiness, the basis of everything, universal base consciousness [JV]
See Also
Footnotes
- ↑ From the Treasury of Word and Meaning; translation from Tulku Thondup in The Practice of Dzogchen (Ithaca: Snow Lion, 1996 & 2002), page 211.
Further Reading
- Tulku Thondup, The Practice of Dzogchen (Ithaca: Snow Lion Publication, 1996), pages 210-212.
